Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady is not right, because written evidence can already be submitted to an inquiry. The decision maker in Jobcentre Plus will look at written matters as well, and that is right and proper. I have also asked those taking responsibility for the test to ensure that we maximise the discretion that is available to all the professionals involved, so that we get the assessment right. It is of course proper that we do so, but although the previous Government introduced the assessment for new claimants they left the 2.5 million people on incapacity benefit untouched. That was a mistake, and I hope that we can all work together to put it right.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

7. What steps he is taking to increase the proportion of benefit fraud detected.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

Total fraud—benefits and tax credits, involving my Department and the Treasury—stands at £5.2 billion. Total welfare fraud stands at £1.5 billion, involving £1 billion in benefits and about £500 million on tax credits. My Department performs about 500,000 data matches per year, and under the new strategy we will use more private sector data matching to try to catch fraudsters and to stop errors. We will recruit more than 200 new anti-fraud officers to sanction about 10,000 fraudsters every year, and there will be a new three strikes regime to ensure that the worst cases, of criminal gangs and larger-scale identity fraudsters are robustly dealt with. It is worth reminding the House that the universal credit system reform will go a very long way to helping to resolve some of the problems concerning errors, which amount to a huge and significant sum each year.

[Mr Jones]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his response. Many of my constituents will be horrified to learn that during the last year of the Labour Government, prosecutions for false benefit claims slumped by 11%. I should therefore be grateful if he confirmed what action he intends to take to reverse that worrying trend.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

As I said earlier, we will undertake a major drive on that issue. We think that, taking on board what the previous Government did, we need to take further action. There have been reports about the issue, and I can clarify some matters. The three strikes policy to which I referred consists of, first, essentially the loss of benefit, sanctioned for four weeks, going up to 13 weeks; secondly, the loss of benefit from 12 weeks to 26 weeks; and, on third conviction, the loss of benefit sanctioned for about three years. We will look further at the penalties, particularly when we detect criminal activity by a consortium trying to defraud the state. The reality is that we have to undertake that drive, and to those who moan about it and say that it is wrong, I must say that the main problem that we face is that taxpayers, who are often on low earnings, pay their taxes to support people in difficulty, and they do not want to see their money wasted, going to people who, frankly, set out to defraud the system. I hope that Members on both sides of the House can agree on that.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Miller)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I agree that Remploy plays an important part in providing employment services for disabled people. As he would expect, we have been looking at the contribution that Remploy makes as part of the spending review process. I would just urge him perhaps not to believe everything that he reads in the newspaper, and say that he will get further details on Wednesday when the Chancellor speaks.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

T4. Following a succession of soundbites from the previous Government, who promised to be tough on benefit fraud but delivered, as usual, very little, can my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State explain to the House why he thinks the new initiatives that he has proposed today will succeed where those of other Governments have failed?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Yes, I can. One thing that it is important for everybody to understand is that not only will we have the three-strikes policy, but we will try to disincentivise people in what I call the low-level area of fraud, which is when they knowingly fail to report changes in their circumstances. In those cases, there will be the ability to fine them £50 on the spot, which will have a big effect on people saying, “Well, I forgot and I didn’t do it.” Providing that we think they knew, it is time they realised that they have, in fact, defrauded the state as well.